Thank you everybody for entering. This generated a seriously awesome list of bad advice. I’m glad I said the winner would be chosen randomly because I couldn’t possibly have chosen the best (worst?) bad advice.

This will probably be my last post here for a couple of weeks, as we’re off to Oman and Dubai to be warm at Christmas. Have I mentioned how awesome it is to live in Switzerland? No way could you take a quick trip from Pennsylvania to Oman. I do have 3 posts scheduled over at BNET, but I can’t link to them until they go live. You’ll all be too busy with holiday cheer anyway.

When I wrote about wealthy and famous people who had spectacular career comebacks, several people asked, “But what about us normal humans? Those of us who don’t have millions of dollars to help us through?” Well, I asked my readers and got numerous fabulous responses. Here are the stories of people who had neither fame nor fortune, but were able to overcome great odds.

Do you really want to give your IT gal those awesome ThinkGeek bucky balls? Are you happy coughing up for a Bath & Body Works gift set for the CFO? Not if the IT gal turns routinely turns off her pager, and the CFO delivers his bad tidings with something like glee.

Secret Santa time may not put you in the holiday spirit. But you can deliver the well-wrapped goods and still vent your unspirited feelings. If you’re truly a Secret Santa. What if the lucky recipient would never, ever, not in a million years, find out how carefully you shopped for the gift with a well-aimed kick? Here are 6 suggestions for anonymous holiday gift giving.First up: For the Micro-Managing Boss

Ever since Kerry at Clue Wagon stopped doing Tales of the Clue Free, I’ve been sad and looking for a replacement. I mean, I want to hear about Clue Free candidates without having to, you know, start recruiting again.

And so yesterday I found the best resume ever. The blogger, Misadventures in HR also included a handy guide so you, too, can write a resume like this. Here are some of her helpful hints:

Next, you’ll need to elaborate on your previous experience. Lengthy stream-of-conscious paragraphs are preferred. If you really want to stand out, make sure you use a few different fonts and font sizes. In Sand Land, this signifies to the an employer that you are a veritable expert in MS Word – sticking to one font is the hallmark of the novice who is ignorant of the fact that multiple fonts exist. Discerning use of the Comic Sans font is a sure fire way to get yourself noticed.

I will dutifully warn that there are some words which I would squidlip-ify. But, I doubt that warning will deter anyone other than my mother.

As my regular readers know, I’m an American living in Switzerland. If I need to run out and get a job, I know precisely where to get one now. Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS). Now, why would I want to work there?

The regulations designate a 1.5 millimeter maximum fingernail length for men, suggests that female bankers wear makeup and put on perfume directly after showering and not after lunch, advocates that shoes be changed daily to bring greater levels of “peace and serenity,” and mandates employee underwear that is skin-toned and “always made of superior quality textiles.”

The hair-care section notes studies have shown that properly cared-for hair and a stylish haircut “increase an individual’s popularity.”

And Styleite tells us that men’s ties should be knotted according to the “morphology of the face.” What does that mean? I have no idea.

Think of how great it would be to be in HR here–specifically if you were in charge of enforcing the dress code. I mean, I could walk down the hall and say, “Hey, Jurge, your tie doesn’t match the morphology of your face!” And how could poor Jurge disagree with me? Because no one knows what that means.

And also, just how are you supposed to check up on the quality of the staff’s underwear?

Hmmm, on second thought, I don’t think they’ll hire me. For that job, they probably want former TSA officials. They have all the underwear experience.

Also, what is an appropriate amount of time to wait before following up with the recruiter? I’ve submitted resumes and waited weeks before hearing anything. For some positions, that’s fine. But for the ones I really want, this feels like an eternity. Often, I never hear back at all, and this often leaves me without a sense of closure (did they see my resume? are they interviewing? will I get a call? should I keep looking? did they hire? why didn’t they choose me?) What’s proper etiquette in this situation?

Would you like a free dress? A totally awesome dress, that is. One from Shabby Apple? I do, but alas, I’m not eligible for this free dress.

The wonderful people at Shabby Apple are giving away one dress to one of my readers. If you win, you can pick any dress from their collection.

I realize this is totally discriminatory and if my male readers want to get some company to offer something masculine I’d be happy to run another contest. But, think of your wife/mother/girlfriend/sister and enter! Then you say, “Honey, for Christmas I got you a new dress!”

In order to enter the contest, leave a comment with the worst career advice you’ve ever received. This can be advice you’ve received in real life, advice you’ve read on the internet (link please) or bad advice you’ve made up yourself for this contest. If you link to something I’ve written, claiming my advice was the worst ever you better justify it or I’ll accidentally rip your entry into tiny little shreds.

The winner will be chosen at random on December 20th! I’m excited to read your bad advice. And you should be excited to get a dress.

Note: I did check with the Shabby Apple people and they will ship internationally, so enter away. I’m dying reading all this advice.

Entries are officially closed. If you have some “good” career advice, feel free to share, but the winner has been picked and is (drum roll please) AZURE, who posted December 15, 2010 6:52 PM.

We read about the wealthy and famous who make big mistakes and yet are able to resurrect their own careers. Of course, it’s easy for them, they’ve got money and connections, right? Well, yes. It’s always easy to make that “risky” career move when you have a hundred million dollars sitting in a bank account just in case your venture isn’t successful.

But, what about normal people? People like you. Have you ever failed? Been fired? Been kicked to the curb? If you have, and you’ve bounced back I’d like to hear about it. Send an e-mail to EvilHRLady@gmail.com with “Comeback” in the subject line, or leave a comment here.

On December 20th, I’ll publish the best stories. If you have a company website, I’ll even link to that, if you desire. Of course, if you want to remain anonymous, we can do that too.

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All HR people are evil, it's in our job description. Or at least, that seems to be the prevailing theory. In reality, there's just more going on behind the scenes than most people know. I'm here to demystify your Human Resources department and tell you just why you worked your tail end off all year and still got a 1.7 percent bonus.

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